Glossary / Contracts
Polaris
Polaris is GSA's governmentwide acquisition contract for information-technology services reserved for small businesses, the successor to Alliant Small Business. It is organized in pools: small business, HUBZone, women-owned small business and service-disabled veteran-owned small business, each awarded to a set of holders that agencies order from under fair-opportunity procedures. Polaris has no ceiling and a long ordering period, and GSA may add holders through on-ramps. Orders cover cloud, cybersecurity, software development, data and other IT services.
Why it matters to your pipeline
Polaris is one of the main vehicles through which civilian agencies buy small-business IT services, so a seat opens a stream of task orders closed to firms outside it, and the socioeconomic pools narrow the competition further. Winning a seat is a competition of past performance and systems; the on-ramps are the chance for firms that missed the first award.
When this term shows up in an opening GovSmith finds for you, your vCM explains what it means for that pursuit and does whatever it calls for. You decide; we do the work.
Example
A HUBZone software firm with a Polaris HUBZone-pool seat competes for a $7M application-modernization task order against the other pool holders and wins on its agency past performance.
Find out what applies to you
Some terms will matter to your business right away and some won’t for years. A vCM can tell you which are which.